Duterte tells UN expert ‘to go to hell’

Outburst comes after remarks about his supposed role in expelling Philippines’ CJ

MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte lashed out at another UN human rights expert for making critical remarks about his supposed role in the expulsion of the chief justice, telling him “to go to hell”.

Duterte dismissed the remarks of Diego Garcia-Sayan (pic) and told him not to meddle in domestic problems. Duterte was replying to a reporter’s question before flying on a visit to South Korea.

“Tell him not to interfere with the affairs of my country. He can go to hell,” Duterte said.

“He is not a special person and I do not recognise his rapporteur title.”

Garcia-Sayan told reporters in Manila on Thursday that the unprecedented ouster of Maria Lourdes Sereno as chief justice after Duterte lambasted her in public is an attack on judicial independence that could put Philippine democracy at risk.

Duterte has reacted with similar public outbursts in the past against other UN rapporteurs who raised alarm and sought an independent investigation into his bloody campaign against illegal drugs, which has left thousands of mostly poor drug suspects dead. Police blamed the deaths on clashes with law enforcers.

Sereno’s ouster has generated “a climate of intimidation” in the 15-member high court and other levels of the judiciary, Garcia-Sayan said.

He added that there was no formal UN investigation into Sereno’s removal, but as the UN rapporteur who looks into threats to independence of judges and lawyers worldwide, he has to speak up when problems are reported anywhere in the world.

He cited his upcoming report on such a threat to the judiciary in Poland.

“For a rapporteur of the UN on independence of justice to keep silent when a chief justice in any country in the world, even in my country, would be dismissed in such way is impossible, and it will be immoral to stay silent,” Garcia-Sayan, a former justice and foreign minister of Peru, said.

He said he sent questions to the Philippine government about the circumstances leading to the May 11 ouster of Sereno and expressed hopes that the Duterte administration would reply within 60 days and agree to a dialogue on issues that could threaten the judiciary’s independence.